The Loop is a Journalism Value Project podcast, brought to you by Reference, a self-organized network of 26 European independent news outlets, hosted by Arena for Journalism.

We are interviewing the members of this network about key challenges for them, ranging from funding and business models, to community engagement and organizational structures, as we explore what success and sustainability looks like for European independent media today.

In this episode, we talk to Reporters United’s journalist Thodoris Chondrogiannos about Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP). Reporters United is an investigative journalism outlet based in Greece.

After reporting about a surveillance scandal involving the Greek National Security Agency, and after proving a link between Dimitriadis, the then president of the Greek NSA, and the Predator spyware, the reporters working on the story were sued by him, twice. One of them for 3.3 million euros.

We are delving into how to survive a SLAPP, and how it can hurt newsrooms.